Accounl of the Eussian Officer ( Waxel). 227 



we felt disastrous effects from its use, in sickness and the loss of several 

 of our men, who died. We tried in vain during three or four days to 

 discover some natiA^es of the country, whose fires we could see at night 

 on the coast. The 4th of September these savages finally came, of them- 

 selves, in little canoes, and, having announced their arrival to us by a 

 loud cry, they presented us with their calumets, in sign of peace. These 

 calumets were sticks with the wings of falcons attached to the end. We 

 understood from their gestures that they were inviting us to come on 

 land in order to furnish us with provisions and fresh water. We wished 

 to profit by the opportunity, and some of us ventured to follow them ; 

 but soon, however, misunderstandings arose and all communication was 

 broken off. 



" The 6th of September, after having at first had a tolerably good wind 

 for the voyage, we began to find that as we advanced the obstacles were 

 increasing, nothing but coasts and islands on every side. M. Bering 

 wished to get away from them by sailing more southwards, and, in truth, 

 for several days the sea appeared much more free. Our joy, however, was 

 of short duration. The 24th of September, in latitude 54 degrees, we 

 came upon coasts bordered with a number of islands, and at the same time 

 a violent tempest arose, which lasted seventeen days and sent us back a 

 distance of eighty miles. An old pilot acknowledged that during the fifty 

 years that he had followed the sea he had never seen such a storm. We 

 should then stop calling this ocean " Pacific." This name may, perhaps, 

 be suitable to it in the tropics, but certainly is wrongly given to it here. 

 The weather became calm again, but our provisions were by this time 

 considerably diminished and there was only about a third of our crew 

 who remained well and serviceable after all the hardships to which they 

 had been exposed. There was still more than half of our way to make, 

 counting from the extreme point of our voyage in the East to Avatscha. 

 In view of these facts, many of us were of opinion that it would be better 

 to winter somewhere in America, rather than run the risk of encounter- 

 ing new clangers worse, perhaps, than those we had just escaped ; and 

 these counsels came near prevailing over those who were of opinion that 

 we should make a supreme effort to reach Avatscha, and that it would be 

 time to think of seeking another refuge when we had lost all hope of suc- 

 ceeding in so doing. The month of October, however, was passed as fruit- 

 lessly as the preceding ones. The 30th of that month we came upon two 

 islands, which seemed to us to bear some resemblance to the first two of 

 those islands which stretch from the' southern extremity of Kamshatka 

 to Japan. Thereupon we directed our course northwards, and the 4th 

 November, having observed the latitude, we found that we were under 

 the 56th parallel. The 5th, however, finished our voyage. Wishing to 

 sail to the west, we struck upon a desert island, where we had a good pros- 

 pect of finishing our lives. Our vessel Avent to j)ieces upon one of those 

 banks Avith which the island is surrounded, and we Avere not long in seek- 

 ing land, which A\'e fortunately reached with everything which we thought 

 Ave should need. By a special dispensation of Providence, the winds and 

 waves threAV the remains of our v^essel on shore ; Ave gathered them to- 



